He may have fashion’s finest ateliers on speed dial, but more often than not, designer Karl Lagerfeld takes his cue from the street. At Chanel’s fall 2013 couture show this summer, he pushed the concept of nail art into new territory, sending models down the runway with dozens of thin diamond rings stacked at the base of the nail bed.

Seen from my laptop in Brooklyn, those glittering bands were nothing short of mesmerizing, but when my editor called a few weeks later asking if I wanted to test-drive the trend for Vogue, I found myself suddenly unsure. A clear manicure topped with a sparkling string of diamonds is stunning in theory, but are nail rings—with their nerve-racking proximity to the end of one’s fingertip—practical for everyday life? Would the simple act of flagging a cab or waving hello send the precious accessories flying into the street?

New York Fashion Week is typically the time for taking a new fashion risk, so in anticipation of its official start, I decided to accept the challenge. The next morning, a quick trip to Vogue’s accessories closet yielded a dozen or so of the delicate pieces on loan. With practical considerations in mind, I ultimately decided on a less literal take on the trend—choosing an assortment of razor-thin gold and diamanté rings that sat somewhere between my knuckle and the edge of my actual nail bed.

Right away, layering the rings, which function as a new fashion-beauty hybrid, was addictive: I slipped a horseshoe-shaped Dezso cuff ring with tiny pear-shaped diamond eyes onto the upper half of my ring finger, and happily added two simple Jacquie Aiche “waif” bands on top. A final ring, Aiche’s flat gold circle, fit right around my nail, hugging it tightly. When they were paired with a coat of clear nail polish from Jin Soon’s West Village salon, everything about my hands seemed to shine.

With a ring on five of my ten fingers (a tiny halo for each tip), I finally took to the streets. At a friend’s art opening on the Lower East Side, my girlfriends loved the look of them, but my boyfriend scoffed when he attempted to hold my hand after a showing of Blue Jasmine in Williamsburg and I wriggled my hand free to make sure my rings were still on tight.

By day four, I’d stopped checking constantly to see if they were still there and instead started keeping track of their inspiring percussive clicking, tapping them against everything from the metal pole on the subway and the marble countertop at the coffee shop to the back of my iPhone while waiting for a text.

Now that I’d mastered the trend’s more wearable incarnations, it seemed time to try a bolder take on the look: an audacious Bijules ring that resembled an actual 24K acrylic fingernail anchored to a thin band—call it the gold-plated tooth of nail accessories. Spotted on fashion editor Anna Dello Russo, who posted herself wearing a band by jewelry designer Asherali Knopfer on Instagram, the street-inspired pieces are experiencing a luxe reworking in materials from rose gold to diamond pavé. Fine, I thought, I’d give it a try.

To balance out the overt shine of the ring, I wore it with a matte navy-blue manicure and a simple linen Rachel Antonoff suit for a fund-raiser at the Maritime Hotel for New York City comptroller candidate Scott Stringer. To my relief, the golden nail stayed on during a firm handshake with the politician. To my despair, a designer friend laughed later when the luxe talon got stuck in my belt loop.

I’ll confess: I experienced one clear moment of panic when, as I traveled home from a weekend in South Carolina, a thin gold Cisthene ring went missing. It eventually turned up in the side pocket of my handbag, affectionately looped around my MAC lipstick, but this made the idea of testing more expensive versions of the rings—like a pair of small, glittering diamond pavé Repossi bands I had briefly considered earlier—seem too risky.

In the end, I found the perfect place to wear them: a Mostly Mozart concert I attended at Lincoln Center with Vogue’s Chloe Malle and Thessaly La Force. My hands stayed in my lap. No sweeping gestures or high fives required.